'Broadchurch' episode seven blog: Who killed Danny Latimer?

It's the penultimate episode of Broadchurch and with just one week to go until Danny's killer is revealed, one major suspect was ruled out, while an eye-witness account appeared to spell trouble for another...

Digital Spy has picked apart episode seven to see if there were any hidden clues.

Last week,David Tennant's Alec Hardy took a turn for the worse and ends up hospitalised with a heart arrhythmia. Alec's need to redeem himself threatens to push him over the edge - will Broadchurch end with the grouchy DI's death?

Hardy took the blame (so he claims) when a vital piece of evidence was stolen from the car of his wife - a Detective Sergeant on the case who'd stopped off at a hotel for a quick tryst with her secret lover.

Alec covered up the whole mess to protect his family, it seems - all very righteous, but I'm so utterly suspicious of everyone and everything in Broadchurch at this point, that I'm not certain if Hardy's even telling the truth. One truth remains undeniable though - David Tennant is utterly fantastic in these scenes.

Back to the murder investigation and Pauline Quirke's Susan Wright - one of the biggest suspects - is revealed to have a solid alibi for the night of Danny's murder - but she knows more than she's letting on...

Susan spotted Danny's killer dumping his body that night, but didn't report what she'd seen for fear of getting caught up with the police. Her dark backstory is finally revealed in full here, as we learn that Susan's ex-husband abused and murdered their daughter, before taking his own life in prison.

As the truth comes out, we feel real sympathy for a character who remains unsettling but is no longer a one-dimensional, chain-smoking bogeyman (or should that be bogeywoman?) and Quirke continues to do sterling work.

As for the killer - if Susan isn't telling fibs, then it appears that Danny was murdered by a man - unsurprising given that Susan herself was the only female character imposing enough to have done the deed…

Top of the list of male suspects is bug-eyed Nige (Joe Sims), whose connection to Susan is finally exposed - she's his muvva!

Susan was torn apart from her son after her family crisis, but now claims that he's the one she saw dumping Danny on the beach. But Nige's own alibi - he claims he was nicking pheasants like Fantastic Mr Fox - sees him released from police custody, placing Susan's poor innocent dog in peril once more…

What's Susan's motivation for fingering Nige? Is he really the killer? Or is she simply traumatised by her past and confused about what she saw? We can probably rule out the possibility of her deliberately misleading the police, given that she maintained her story whilst she and Nige were alone in the caravan.

In addition to all the Susan/Nige drama, a few other points of interest this week - Tom Miller's friendship (or rather lack of one) with Danny is addressed and, thanks to the Reverend Coates, the police finally have Tom's laptop.

Hardy's finally read those e-mails that Tom did his best to erase and, given that this particular plot point has been held back from episode one all the way to the finale, it's safe to assume that their contents are key to the investigation and not simply a red herring.

We also got a big clue regarding the shadowy figure who fled from the hut last week - the call that tipped police off to his presence came from Danny's missing phone.

The killer wouldn't want to reveal his location to the cops, so presumably either the phone is not in the killer's possession or the figure in the hut was not the killer - but if so, what motive would the killer have for contacting the police and alerting them to the hut-dweller's location?

- OK people, next week is the big *bumper-length* 65-minute finale, so this is the final call for theories and speculation. What's on Tom Miller's hard drive? Is Steve really psychic? Will Hardy make it out alive? Can Olly get any more annoying? AND WHO KILLED DANNY LATIMER?

Who do you think killed Danny? Have we missed any vital clues? Let us know your theories below.